The Meanings Behind 20 Chemical Element Names | Mental Floss The Meanings Behind 20 Chemical Element Names filed under: chemistry , language Like us on Facebook On December 30, 2015, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry announced the discovery of four new chemical elements—numbers 113, 115, 117, and 118—the first new elements added to the periodic table since 2011 . For the time being, they have the fairly clunky Latin and Greek numerical names ununtium (Uut), ununpentium (Uup), ununseptium (Uus), and ununoctium (Uuo), but, by IUPAC rules, their discovers now get the chance to officially name them. Online, there’s growing support to name one of these new “heavy metal” elements lemmium in honor of Motörhead frontman Lemmy (who died two days before they were announced), and another octarine after the fictional “color of magic” in the late Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels (Pratchett died in March 2015).

Whether these two petitions will come to fruition remains to be seen—the final names are not likely to be announced until later in the spring—but as IUPAC rules demand all new elements be named after either a mythological concept or character, a mineral, a place, a property of the element itself, or a scientist [ PDF ], it seems unlikely we’ll be seeing lemmium on the walls of chemistry classes any time soon. The stories behind 20 other chemical element names are explained here. 1. LITHIUM (3) Despite being the least dense metal, lithium takes its name from the Greek word for “stone,” lithos, because it was discovered in a rock (as opposed to the other alkali metals potassium and sodium, which were discovered in plants and animals). 2. CARBON (6) The name carbon comes from the Latin word carbo, meaning “coal” or “charcoal.” A small carbo, incidentally, was a carbunculus, which is the origin of carbuncle. 3. NEON (10) Neon takes its name from neos, the Greek word for “new” (it was “newly” discovered in 1898). 4.

PHOSPHORUS (15) Phosphorus literally means “light-bearer” or “light-bringing,” as the first compound of the element glowed in the dark. A century before it became the name of element 15 in the late 1600s, Phosphorus was an alternative name for the planet Venus, whose appearance in the sky was once believed to strengthen the light and heat of the Sun. 5. VANADIUM (23) One of the transition metals, pure vanadium is a harsh steel-grey color, but four of its oxidation states produce a rainbow of solutions, colored purple, green, blue, and yellow . Because he was so impressed with how beautiful and varied these solutions were, the Swedish chemist Nils Sefström chose to name vanadium after Vanadís, an alternate name for the Norse goddess of beauty, Freya. Vanadium’s next door neighbor, chromium (24), also produces a variety of colored compounds and so takes its name from the Greek word for “color,” chroma. 6.

COBALT (27) Cobalt is often naturally found alongside or in minerals combined with arsenic, and when smelted, cobalt ore can emit noxious arsenic-laden fumes. Long before the poisonous qualities of minerals like these could be explained by science, copper miners in central Europe had no better explanation than to presume these toxic effects were supernatural, and were caused by devious underground goblins called kobolds who lived inside the rock—and it's from the German word kobold that cobalt gets its name. 7. COPPER (29) The chemical symbol for copper is Cu, which derives from the metal’s Latin name, cuprum. In turn, cuprum is descended from Kyprios, the Ancient Greek name for the island of Cyprus, which was well known in antiquity for its production of copper.

Some other chemical elements named after places include germanium (32), americium (95), berkelium (97), californium (98), and darmstadtium (110), while the elements ruthenium (44), holmium (67), lutetium (71), hafnium (72), and polonium (84) take their names from the Latin names for Russia (Ruthenia), Stockholm (Holmia), Paris (Lutetia), Copenhagen (Hafnia), and Poland (Polonia). 8. GALLIUM (31) A brittle, silvery-colored metal with a melting point just above room temperature, at 85ºF—meaning that a solid block would quite easily melt in your hand —gallium was discovered in 1875 by the French chemist Paul-Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran.

He chose to name it after Gaul, the Latin name for France, but soon after his discovery was announced, de Boisbaudran was forced to deny allegations that he had actually intended the name gallium to be a self-referencing pun on his own name: Lecoq means “the rooster” in French, while the Latin word for “rooster” is gallus. Despite explicitly writing in a paper in 1877 that France was the true namesake, the rumor dogged de Boisbaudran his whole life and has endured to today. 9. BROMINE (35) One of just two elements that are liquid at room temperature (the second being mercury), bromine usually appears as a rich, dark red-brown liquid, similar to blood, that emits fumes and has a characteristically harsh smell. Ultimately, it takes its name from a Greek word, bromos, meaning “stench.” 10. KRYPTON (36) Because it is colorless, odorless, and so difficult to discover, krypton takes its name from the Greek word for “hidden,” kryptos. 11.

STRONTIUM (38) The only chemical element named after a place in Britain, strontium takes its name from its mineral ore strontianite, which was in turn named after the town of Strontian in the Scottish Highlands near where it was discovered in 1790. 12. YTTRIUM (39) In 1787, a Swedish Army officer and part-time chemist named Carl Axel Arrhenius came across an unusually heavy, black-colored rock in the waste heap of a quarry near the village of Ytterby, 15 miles outside Stockholm. He named his discovery ytterbite, and sent a sample of the mineral to his colleague, Professor Johan Gadolin (the namesake of element number 64, gadolinium), at Åbo University in modern-day Finland . Gadolin found that it contained an element that was entirely new to science, which he called yttrium; since then, many more elements have been discovered in Ytterby’s mine, and three more—terbium (65), erbium (68), ytterbium (70)—have been given names honoring the village in which it was discovered.

Consequently, the tiny Swedish village of Ytterby remains the most-honored location on the entire periodic table. 13. ANTIMONY (51) To etymologists, antimony is probably the most troublesome of all chemical element names, and its true origin remains a mystery. Instead, various unproven theories claim that it might derive from Greek words meaning “floret” (a reference to the spiky appearance of its ore, stibnite), “against solitude” (a reference to the idea that it never appears naturally in its pure form), and even “monk-killer” (as antimony is poisonous, and many early alchemists were monks). 14. XENON (54) Like xenophobia, xenon takes its name from a Greek word, xenos, meaning “strange” or “foreign.” 15. PRASEODYMIUM (59) Because of the greenish color of its mineral salts, the lanthanide metal praseodymium takes its name from a Greek word meaning “green,” prasios—which in turn takes its name from the Greek word for a leek, prason. The dymium part is more complicated .

In 1842, a new “element” was discovered called didymium, from the Greek for "twin," so named because it was always accompanied with cerium and lanthanum (and possibly because the namer had two pairs of twins of his own). Forty years later, scientists split didymium into two different elements, praseodidymium (green twin) and neodidymium (new twin). The di- was dropped almost instantly, leaving neodymium and praseodymium. 16. SAMARIUM (62) Several famous names are commemorated on the periodic table, including Albert Einstein (einsteinium, 99), Niels Bohr (bohrium, 107), Enrico Fermi (fermium, 100), Alfred Nobel (nobelium, 102), and Pierre and Marie Curie (curium, 96). The earliest eponymous element, however, was the little-known metal samarium, which indirectly took its name from an equally little-known Russian mining engineer called Vasili Samarsky-Bykhovets.

In the early 1800s, Samarsky was working as chief clerk of the Russian mining department when he granted a German mineralogist named Gustav Rose access to a collection of samples taken from a mine in the Ural Mountains. Rose discovered a new mineral in one of the samples, which he named samarskite in Samarsky’s honor; decades later, in 1879, de Boisbaudran found that samarskite contained an element that was new to science, which in turn he named samarium. 17. DYSPROSIUM (66) Eleven years after discovering gallium and 7 years after discovering samarium, de Boisbaudran discovered the rare earth element dysprosium in 1886. It took him 30 attempts to isolate a pure sample—and consequently he named it after dysprositos, a Greek word meaning “hard to get at.” 18.

TANTALUM (73) Ten times rarer than gold in the universe, tantalum is a hard, silvery metal known for its resistance to corrosion and its chemical inertness, both of which make it extremely useful in the manufacture of laboratory equipment and medical implants. Although it’s sometimes said to have been named for the “tantalizing” frustration early chemists experienced in trying to obtain a pure sample, it’s tantalum’s unreactiveness that is the real origin of its name: Because it appears unaffected by practically anything it is submerged in or brought into contact with, tantalum is named for Tantalus, a character in Greek mythology who was punished by being forced to stand knee-deep in a pool of water below a fruit tree, both of which drew away from him whenever he reached out to eat or drink (a story which is also the origin of the word tantalize). Incidentally, Tantalus’s daughter Niobe also features on the periodic table as the namesake of element 41, niobium. 19.

URANIUM (92) Uranium was discovered by the German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth in 1789, who named it honor of the planet Uranus, which had also only recently been discovered. When elements 93 and 94 were discovered in 1940, they were named neptunium and plutonium so as to continue the sequence of planets. 20. MENDELEVIUM (101) The invention of the periodic table is credited to the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev in 1869, whose organization of the table allowed him not only to predict the existence of elements that had yet to be discovered at the time, but to correct what was generally understood about the properties of some existing elements. Element number 101, mendelevium, is appropriately named in his honor. Which elements are named after towns? | Reference.com Which elements are named after towns? A: Quick Answer There are a number of chemical elements that are named after towns, including strontium, dubnium, berkelium, darmstadtium and hassium.

There are actually four elements that get their name from the town of Ytterby, Sweden: ytterbium, erbium, terbium and yttrium. Full Answer Strontium gets its name from the town of Strontium, Scotland, while dubnium is named for the Russian town of Dubna. Berkelium was first discovered at the University of California at Berkeley and takes its name from that city. Darmstadium and hassium were named after the German towns of Darmstadt and Hesse, respectively. The reason that so many elements are named after Ytterby, a tiny island off the coast of Stockholm, is due to the presence of a rare earth mine on the island. Rare earth elements tend to become mixed up in the ground, so many are usually discovered at one time. In fact, seven total elements were discovered at Ytterby, but only four directly took their name from it. The other three elements are holmium, thulium and gadolinium. Thulium takes its name from an ancient word for Scandinavia, while gadolinium is named after the person who made the original discovery, Josh Gadolin.

The name holmium comes from the Latin word for Stockholm, Holmia. This is similar to the element hafnium, which comes from Hafnia, the Latin word for Copenhagen.

The Parts of the Periodic Table Elements named after countries, states, or other geographical features: Californium: state (and University) of California Francium: France Gallium: Latin word for France, Gallia Germanium: Latin word for Germany, Germania Hassium: German state of Hesse, where the GSI is located Magnesium: named after Magnesia, a district in Thessaly in central Greece Polonium: named for Marie Curie's native country of Poland Rhenium: named after the Latin word for the Rhine River, Rhenus Ruthenium: named after the Latin word for Russia, Ruthenia Scandium: named after the Latin word for Scandinavia, Scandia Thulium: named after the ancient word for Scandinavia, Thule Elements named after cities: Berkelium: Berkeley, California, home of the University of California, where a number of synthetic elements have been produced Darmstadtium: Darmstadt, Germany, home of the Laboratory for Heavy Ion Research (GSI, Gesellschaft fï¿½r Schwerionenforschung) where a number of synthetic elements have been produced Dubnium: Dubna, Russia, home of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (

JINR, Объединённый институт ядерных исследований, ОИЯИ), where a number of synthetic elements have been produced Erbium, Terbium, Ytterbium, Yttrium: all named after the Swedish village of Ytterby (near Vaxholm), where these elements were first isolated (as well as Holmium, Scandium, and Tantalum) Hafnium: Copenhagen (Hafnia), Denmark Fermium: Enrico Fermi, the inventor of the first nuclear reactor Lawrencium: Ernest O.

Lawrence, inventor of the cyclotron Meitnerium: Lise Meitner, one of the first scientists to recognize that uranium could undergo nuclear fission Mendelevium: Dimitri Mendelev, the deviser of the Periodic Table of the Elements Nobelium: Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite and founder of the Nobel Prize Roentgenium: Wilhelm Rï¿½ntgen, the discoverer of X-rays Rutherfordium: Ernest Rutherford, discoverer of the atomic nucleus, and a pioneer in the study of nuclear physics Seaborgium: Glenn T.

Seaborg, who discovered/synthesized a number of transuranium elements Most of the rest of the names of the elements are derived from various chemical or physical properties: Actinium: Greek: aktinos, "ray" (because it glows with a blue light in the dark) Antimony: Greek: anti + monos, "not alone" (because it was never found uncombined with another element) Argon: Greek: argos, "idle" (because of its unreactivity) Astatine: Greek: astatos, "unstable" (because it is) Barium: Greek: barys, "heavy" (in reference to the high density of some barium minerals) Bromine: Greek: bromos, "stench" (elemental bromine has a terrible smell) Cobalt: German: kobold, "goblin" (because of the toxic fumes of arsenic that were produced when silver miners heated the arsenic-containing ore smaltite, mistaking it for silver ore) Dysprosium: Greek: dysprositos, "hard to get at" (because the first isolation of the element required a tedious separation sequence) Fluorine: Latin: fluere,

 "to flow" Hydrogen" Greek: hydro + genes, "water forming" Krypton: Greek: kryptos, "hidden" (since it had been "hidden" in a sample of argon) Lanthanum: Greek: lanthanein, "to be hidden" (because the element was discovered "hidden" as an impurity in ores of cerium) Manganese: Latin: magnes, "magnet" (because it can be made to be ferromagnetic with the right treatment) Neodymium: Greek: neos + didymos, "new twin" Neon" Greek: neos, "new" Nickel: German: kupfernickel, "Old Nick's copper" (i.e., copper of the devil, or false copper, because it was frequently mistaken for copper) Nitrogen: Latin: nitron + genes, "nitre [potassium nitrate] forming" Osmium: Greek: osme, "odor" (because of its nasty smell, which is actually caused by osmium tetroxide) Oxygen: Latin: oxy + genes, "acid forming" Phosphorus: Greek: phos + phoros, "light bringing" (because it glows

 in the dark, and spontaneously burst into flame in air) Radium: Latin: radius, "ray" (because of its ability to glow in the dark with a faint blue light) Technetium: Greek: technetos, "artificial" Tungsten: Swedish: tung sten, "heavy stone" (because of the elements high density) Xenon: Greek: xenos, "stranger" (because at the time, it did not form compounds with other elements References John Emsley, The Elements, 3rd edition.

Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998. John Emsley, Nature's Building Blocks: An A-Z Guide to the Elements. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Dark gray, dense metal which can take on a high polish melting point 2227 °C; 4041 °F boiling point 4602 °C; 8316 °F density 13.31 g/cc; 830.92 pounds/cubic foot 1922 Dirk Coster & György Karl von Hevesy, Denmark Hafnia = København (Copenhagen) (Latin) History & Etymology Chemists suspected long time, that Zirconium minerals contained the impurity of some unknown element. Many of them reported the discovery of this element: 1845: The Swedish chemist and mineralogist Lars Fredrik Svanberg (1805-1878) reported the discovery in zircon of this new element, which he named Norium.

Ostranium (остраний), 1869: Henry Clifton Sorby discovered Jargonium by spectroscopical analysis. He retracted his claim the following year: the spectrum he had seen was due to impure Zirconium (note) . 1879: Tellef Dahl, inspector of the Norwegian mines, found a new metal in nickel pyrite of Kragerø, in Norway, and named it Norwegium (Ng) (norvégium) after the country in which it was first found (note) . 1911: Nigrium. Euxenium (эвксений). On the basis of the periodic law the Danish chemist Julius Thomsen (1826-1909) showed in 1895 that an element must exist between the rare earths and Tantalum, different from the rare earths and close to Zirconium. The final discovery of Hafnium in the first half of the twentieth century was one of chemistryпїЅs more controversial episodes.

In 1911 Georges Urbain, the French chemist and authority on the rare earths, claimed to have isolated the element of atomic number 72 from a sample of rare-earth residues, and named it Celtium (Ct) (note) . It seems very unlikely that this element could have been found in the necessary concentrations along with rare earths. But, in 1922 Urbain and Alexandre Dauvillier claimed to have X-ray evidence to support the discovery (note) . Around the same time a mineral orthite, found on the Svjatoj Nos peninsula in the Trans-Baykal region, was brought under the attention of the chemists in St. Petersburg. It was supposed that orthite contained one of the most interesting radioactive elements, Thorium. The geochemist Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadskij (Владимир Иванович Вернадский) (1863-1945) charged the analysis of orthite to his student Konstantin Avtonomovich Nenadkevich (Константин Автономович Ненадкевич) (1880-1963).

Soon he extracted from orthite the assumed thorium, but they were not confident, that they had isolated Thorium. Nenadkevich determined the atomic weight of the element and it turned out that it was equal to 178, while the atomic weight of Thorium is 232. In accordance with the periodic law the element in orthite must be found in Mendeleyev's table between Lutecium and Tantalum, thus element #72. Since this was an empty place, Nenadkevich had found a new element, which he named Asium (азием), after Asia, where the mineral was found. Because of the First World War and the following Civil War in Russia, the necessary further confirmation research and publication was delayed. By that time Niels Bohr had developed his atomic theory and so was confident that element 72 would be a member of Group 4 and was more likely to be found along with zirconium than with the rare earths.

Working in Bohr's laboratory in Copenhagen in 1922, the Dutchman Dirk Coster (1889-1950) and the Hungarian György Karl von Hevesy (1885-1966) used X-ray spectroscopic analysis to show that element 72 was present in Norwegian zircon. In November 1922 was announced that the Nobel Prize in Physics for the year 1922 was awarded to Bohr "for his services in the investigation of the structure of atoms and of the radiation emanating from them". Bohr went to Stockholm to receive the prize and would give his Nobel Lecture "The structure of the atom". The day before his presentation, Bohr received a very significant message of Coster and Hevesy which had remained in Copenhagen. They had just highlighted lines which must be from element 72. The Dutchman Coster proposed the name Hafnium (after Copenhagen), and although Bohr preferred the name Danium (after Denmark), he accepted Coster's name. Bohr announced the discovery of Hafnium in his Nobel Lecture: "In these circumstances Dr. Coster and Prof.

Hevesy, who are both for the time working in Copenhagen, took up a short time ago the problem of testing a preparation of zircon-bearing minerals by X-ray spectroscopic analysis.

These investigators have been able to establish the existence in the minerals investigated of appreciable quantities of an element with atomic number 72, the chemical properties of which show a great similarity to those of zirconium and a decided difference from those of the rare-earths.*" (note) The note in the published version says: "* For the result of the continued work of Coster and Hevesy with the new element, for which they have proposed the name hafnium, the reader may be referred to their letters in Nature of January 20, February 10 and 24, and April 7." Hafnia Copenhagen (English pronunciation: /ˈkoʊpənˌheɪɡən/); Danish: København (pronounced [kʰøb̥ənˈhaʊ̯ˀn] is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,167,569 (2009) and a metropolitan population of 1,875,179 (2009). Copenhagen is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager.

First documented in the 11th century, Copenhagen became the capital of Denmark in the beginning of the 15th century and during the 17th century under the reign of Christian IV it became an important regional centre. The city's origin as a harbour and a place of commerce is reflected in its name. Its original designation, from which the contemporary Danish name is derived, was Køpmannæhafn, "merchants' harbour". The English name for the city is derived from its Low German name, Kopenhagen (note). The element is named after Copenhagen, because in this town the element was discovered. Copenhagen, or more correct in Danish København, means literally "merchant's harbour". Further reading Mary Elvira Weeks, Discovery of the Elements, comp. rev. by Henry M. Leicester (Easton, Pa.: Journal of Chemical Education, 1968), pp. 820-823. François Gaudreau, Le tableau périodique et la découverte de l'hafnium.

Sherbrooke, Québec (on-line) Eric Scerri, "Prediction of the Nature of Hafnium from Chemistry, Bohr's Theory and Quantum Theory." Annals of Science 51 (1994): 137-150. (on-line) Elements Named for Places | The Basement Geographer Elements Named for Places by kuschk As schoolchildren, we are all exposed to the periodic table of the elements in our science textbooks and on the walls of our chemistry classrooms. This organised display of the chemical elements – the pure chemical substances that are the building blocks of all molecules – ingrains the names, symbols, and atomic weights of the 118 elements that have been identified in our heads. 98 of these elements occur naturally on Earth (although some only in trace amounts); the other 20 have been artificially produced within laboratories.

The names of elements derive from a number of different sources: ancient or longstanding names for those elements discovered in days of yore (e.g., gold, silver, antimony); descriptive names for elements that exhibit a certain characteristic (the most common source of element names, usually derived from a Greek adjective), or eponymic names for elements named after people (e.g., curium , einsteinium , bohrium ). This is a geography website, however, and so it should come as no surprise that this article is most concerned with those elements that have geographically-derived names. While the practice of naming elements after places is becoming increasingly common due to the need to find names for synthetically-created laboratory elements, the practice as a regular occurrence dates back to the mid-19th century (and technically, it dates as far back as the name for copper, as you’ll find out below). Of the 118 identified elements, 32 derive their name from a toponym. As you’ll see below, because much of the influence in the field of nuclear physics has been held by a select few laboratories, there is a surprising amount of repetition in terms of name sources.

Americium (95 Am): Named for (the United States of) America, the land where the element was discovered during the course of the Manhattan Project , the US-led World War II programme that would develop the first atomic bomb. Two members of the team that helped discover americium, Glenn Seaborg and Albert Ghiorso , were part of teams based out of the University of California, Berkeley ’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory that were ultimately responsible for discovering or co-discovering 13 different elements between 1940 and 1974. Among these elements, berkelium (97 Bk)and californium (98 Cf)were discovered by this team in 1949 and 1950, respectively, and named accordingly. The Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory. Cerium (58 Ce) and palladium (46 Pd): In the early 19th century, chemists were discovering all sorts of elements; for example, just between 1801 and 1809 twelve different elements were isolated for the first time. Also during this decade, astronomers were discovering the first known asteroids.

Two of these extraterrestrial bodies would lend their names to newly-discovered elements. The first asteroid to be discovered, Ceres (today classified as a dwarf planet) was discovered on the last day of 1801. When the great Swedish chemist Jöns Jakob Berzelius co-discovered the element with the atomic number of 58 in 1803, he would name it after the recently discovered Ceres ( itself named for the Roman god of agriculture). At the same time in England, William Hyde Wollaston had discovered the element with the atomic number of 46 and also intended to name this element for Ceres. Wollaston, however, did not immediately publish his results (in fact, he instead made his first announcement of his discovery by selling samples of his newly-discovered metal in a London mineralogical shop ) and by the time he went public with his discovery, cerium has already been announced by Berzelius. Wollaston thus went with the name of the second asteroid to be discovered, Pallas , first observed in March 1802.

Copper (29 Cu): The English copperis derived from the Latin cuprum, a simplification of an older Latin name for the metal, aes Cyprium, which in turn comes from the Greek name for Cyprus . The island was a major source of the metal in Roman times. While other, larger countries have long surpassed Cyprus in terms of overall production, mining continues on the island. The association of Cyprus with copper is perhaps best evidenced by the flag of Cyprus in which the entire island is coloured in copper. Darmstadtium (110 Ds) and hassium (108 Hs): Darmstadt , one of the major cities of the German state of Hesse , is home to the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research , a laboratory responsible for the discovery of six elements between 1982 and 1996. While four of these elements have been named for prominent scientists, hassium (from the Latin name of the state, Hassia) and darmstadtium were named for the home of the laboratory.

Dubnium (105 Db): The city of Dubna in Russia’s Moscow Oblast was originally developed in the immediate post-World War II era to serve as the hub of nuclear physics research in the Soviet Union. The research laboratory eventually developed into the international Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR). Since 1956, the JINR has been responsible for the discovery or co-discovery of eleven separate elements. Dubna emerged as a compromise naming candidate when the two co-discoverers (the JINR prepared the element in 1968 and proposed the name nielsbohrium after the Danish physicist Niels Bohr ; the Berkeley Laboratory prepared the element in 1970 and proposed the name hahnium after the german chemist Otto Hahn ). It was not until 1997 that dubnium was finally approved once and for all. Erbium (68 Er), terbium (65 Tb), ytterbium (70 Yb), and yttrium (39 Y): Amazingly, all four of these elements are named after Ytterby, a small suburban island village east of Stockholm, Sweden.

It all has to do with a 1787 discovery made in the dumps of a small rock quarry in the village made by a student of Berzelius/naval lieutenant named Carl Axel Arrhenius . There, Arrhenius would come across a black ore that was far too heavy and metallic to be coal. Naming the ore ytterbite, Arrhenius sent the sample off for analysis to various chemists. This single rock sample would go on to produce ten separate new elements over the next century-and-a-half. The Finnish-Swedish chemist Johan Gadolin would be the first chemist to discover an entirely new element within the sample, finding that 38% of the black ore was composed of an entirely new ‘earth type’ . Naming the newly-discovered ore ytterbia in 1794 (shortened three years later to yttria) after Arrhenius’ ytterbite, the element first isolated from yttria by convention took the name yttrium.

In 1843, Carl Gustav Mosander , another Swedish chemist, would discover two more unique parts within the yttria sample, which he termed erbia and terbia (giving rise to erbium and terbium). Throughout the 1870s and 1880s, different pieces of the sample were further isolated, producing even more elements. In 1878, the last variation on the name of Ytterby, ytterbium, was discovered. Further elements discovered from that original ore sample would thus have to take on names derived from other sources. Many of these newer elements stuck with Scandinavian-themed names: holmium (67 Ho) for Stockholm; scandium (21 Sc), taken from the Latin name for Scandinavia, Scandia; and thulium (69 Tm), named for the mythical land of Thule commonly associated with Scandinavia. Even places that don’t have a direct connection to Ytterby were commemorated in elements isolated from that original rock sample.

A part of the sample was sent off to Paris, and it was in Paris that ytterbium, holmium, and gadolinium (named for Gadolin) were first isolated. The final element to be isolated from the sample would be named for Paris, lutetium (71 Lu, after Lutetia, the name of Paris during Roman rule). Besides gadolinium, the only non-topoynymically named element to come from Ytterby was dyprosium , taken from the Greek term for ‘hard to get at’. The commemorative plaque at the quarry in Ytterby. Source: Uwezi, . Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported licence. Europium (63 Eu): Named by its French discover Eugene Demarcay for Europe. Francium (87 Fr) and gallium (31 Ga): In addition to lutetium, France is also represented with francium and gallium (from the Latin Gallia). Gallium actually came first , discovered in 1875 by Paul Émile (François) Lecoq de Boisbaudran .

Francium would not be named until 1939, when the French physicist Marguerite Perey , a student of Marie Curie, discovered it. Germanium (32 Ge): Following gallium in the periodic table is germanium, discovered in 1886 by Clemens Winkler. Initially, his plan was to name the element neptunium after the planet Neptune (just as the existence of Neptune had been mathematically predicted, so had the existence of the 32nd element), but neptunium had already been temporarily bestowed on what would eventually be termed niobium . Winkler thus renamed his discovery after his home country of Germany. Hafnium (72 Hf): Hafnia is the Latin name for Copenhagen, where this element was first isolated in 1923. Livermorium (116 Lv*): This is the proposed name for the 116th element, temporarily named ununhexium (‘one-one-six’-ium) until a permanent name is agreed upon.

Discovered in 2000 at Dubna, this discovery, as have all of the elemental discoveries from 113 onward, was a collaborative effort between scientists from the JINR and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory at Livermore, California. Magnesium (12 Mg) and manganese (25 Mn): As with magnetite, the iron oxide ore with which most people associate the term ‘magnetic’, these two elements are named for Magnesia , the region of Thessaly , Greece with which they were associated with in antiquity. ‘Manganese’ is a borrowing from Italian and itself a corruption of ‘Magnesia’. Magnesia (red) within Thessaly (orange) and Greece (yellow). Uranium (92 U), neptunium (93 Np), and plutonium (94 Pu): These three elements named for the three outermost planets of the solar system (Pluto, of course, was eventually downgraded to the status of dwarf planet) occur in succession in the periodic table.

Uranium was first isolated in 1789 and named for the most recently discovered planet of the day, Uranus (discovered in 1781 in the same wave of astrological discoveries that would find Ceres and Pallas). When the 93rd and 94thelements were finally discovered during 1940-41 at the Berkeley lab after irradiating uranium with neutrons (93) and bombarding uranium with deuterons (94), it only made sense to name them systematically after the element from which they were derived. Polonium (84 Po): One of the two elements discovered by Pierre and Marie Curie at the turn of the 20th century, polonium takes its name from Poland, the homeland of Marie Curie (Pierre Curie’s home of France was already commemorated by this point with gallium). Rhenium (75 Re): This element was actually discovered in 1908 by the Japanese scientist Masataka Ogawa , who named it nipponium after Japan. Ogawa, however, believed that he had found the 43rd element rather than the 75th.

It would not be until 1925 that a German team isolated the element and properly determined its atomic number. Rhenus is the Latin term for the Rhine River, and the Rhineland was the home of one of the co-discoverers, Ida Eva Tacke . Ruthenium (44 Ru): When large tracts of platinum were discovered in the Ural Mountains in 1824, samples were sent to Berzelius and his Russian collaborator Gottfried Osann. While Berzelius could not identify any new metals within the sample, Osann was able to detect three new metals , one of which he named ruthenium after Ruthenia , the Latin term for the land of the Kievan Rus (today, Ruthenia is more commonly association with Ukraine rather all of the land of the Kievan Rus which included most of European Russia and Belarus). Unable to isolate the elements within, the formal discovery of ruthenium would wait until 1844 when another Russian scientist of German descent, Karl Claus , was able to do so. He kept the term ruthenium both in deference to Osann and in recognition of the metal’s Russian origin.

Strontium (38 Sr): Mining for lead in and around the small village of Strontian in the Scottish Highlands began during the 1720s. By 1790, it was realised that much of the raw material from which the lead was being harvested, called strontianite after the village, was also housing an entirely distinct type of mineral . Over the next two decades, a number of scientists would independently confirm the existence would become known as strontium; its first confirmed isolation was by the Cornish chemist Humphry Davy in 1808. For more information on the history behind the names of elements, the only place you need to visit, really, is Peter van der Krogt’s Elementymology & Elements Multidict ; an incredible assemblage of information that can occupy you for hours. Further Reading International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry (2011). Start of the Name Approval Process for the Elements of Atomic Number 114 and 116. 1 December 2011. Available at . Accessed 20 April 2012. Kean, S. (2010).

Ytterby: The Tiny Swedish Island That Gave the Periodic Table Four Different Elements. Slate, 16 July 2010. Available at . Accessed 20 April 2012. van der Krogt, P. (2010). Elementymology & Elements Multidict. Available at . Accessed 20 April 2012. Winter, M. (2012). WebElements. Available at . Accessed 20 April 2012. Hafnium | Define Hafnium at Dictionary.com hafnium [haf-nee-uh m, hahf-] /ˈhæf ni əm, ˈhɑf-/ Spell noun, Chemistry. 1. a gray, toxic metallic element with a high melting point (over 2000°C), found in most zirconium minerals. Symbol: Hf; atomic weight: 178.49; atomic number: 72; specific gravity: 12.1.

Origin of hafnium 1923; < New Latin Hafn(ia) Copenhagen + -ium Dictionary.com Unabridged British Dictionary definitions for hafnium Expand noun 1. a bright metallic element found in zirconium ores: used in tungsten filaments and as a neutron absorber in nuclear reactors. Symbol: Hf; atomic no: 72; atomic wt: 178.49; valency: 4; relative density: 13.31; melting pt: 2231±20°C; boiling pt: 4603°C Word Origin C20: New Latin, named after Hafnia, Latin name of Copenhagen + -ium Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012 Word Origin and History for hafnium Expand n.

rare element, 1923, Modern Latin, from Hafnia, Medieval Latin form of Danish Havn "harbor," the usual pre-1400 name of Copenhagen , Denmark, where it was discovered by physicist Dirk Coster (1889-1950) and chemist George de Hevesy (1885-1966). Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper

Question: Which chemical element is named after the Latin for Copenhagen where it was discovered?
Answer: HAFNIUM